Digging through the Washington Post this morning, Page A2, was an article on Monday's NAR report that housing sales had jumped about 10% in September over the previous month. Buying activity had increased in every part of the country on a regional basis and for all types of housing. The Washington metro area seems to have bucked the trend with a decline in the number of sales (-12.5%) from the previous year. The median home price in the D.C. region is $410,839 in the third quarter of 2010, up 6.2% from one year ago, and up 3.1% from the previous quarter. The inventory of homes in the D.C. area has surpassed the six month comfort level to 6.9 months. That is considerably higher than last year's inventory level of 5.4 months. Even within the D.C. area the inventory will be higher or lower depending on location.
Surprising that the inventory has grown in a market where unemployment is relatively low (around 6%) while sales are up in much of the rest of the nation. I suspect that the D.C. area has already gone through the bulk of the market meltdown and sales are down because the low hanging fruit has already been picked (i.e. - the best deals are already gone). That may not be the case elsewhere. If you thinking of buying, you may want to move quicker rather than wait too long to make a decision especially if you are looking at interest rates. You will not know that you have hit the bottom of the market (and I think we have already done so here) until the prices start going back up (and it seems they are).
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